Well, we scrambled immediately. But Tarco’s big moon-shaped face was creased by a look I didn’t recognise.

‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘I heard that name before. Assimilator’s Torch. She’s due to arrive here at Base 592 next year.’

‘Then it’s a little early. So what?’

He stared at me. ‘You don’t get it, buttface. I saw the manifest. The Torch is a newborn Spline. It hasn’t even left Earth.’

But the injured Spline looked decades old, at least. ‘You made a mistake. Buttface yourself.’

He didn’t rise to the bait. Still, that was the first indication I had that there was something very wrong here.

The Kard lifted away from its operational position, and I had a grand view of Base 592, the planet on which we were stationed. From space it is a beautiful sight, a slow-spinning sphere of black volcanic rock peppered with the silver-grey of shipyards, so huge they are like great gleaming impact craters. There are even artificial oceans, glimmering blue, for the benefit of Spline vessels, who swim there between missions.

592 has a crucial strategic position, for it floats on the fringe of the 3-Kiloparsec Spiral Arm that surrounds the Galaxy’s Core, and the Xeelee concentrations there. Here, some ten thousand light years from Earth, was as deep as the Third Expansion of mankind had yet penetrated into the central regions of the main disc. 592 was a fun assignment. We were on the front line, and we knew it. It made for an atmosphere you might call frenetic. But now I could see ships lifting from all around the planet, rushing to the aid of the stricken vessel. It was a heart-warming, magnificent sight, humanity at its best.

As we approached the Spline, the Kard hummed like a well-tuned machine. Right now, all over the ship, I knew, the whole crew - officers and gunners, cooks and engineers and maintenance stiffs, experienced officers and half-trained rookies - everybody was getting ready to save human beings from the great void that had tried to kill them. It was what you did. I looked forward to playing my part.

Which was why I wasn’t too happy to hear the soft voice of Commissary Varcin behind me. ‘Ensign. Are you’ - he checked a list - ‘Dakk? I have a special assignment for you. Come with me.’ Varcin, gaunt and tall, served as the corvette’s political officer, as assigned to every ship of the line with a crew above a hundred. He had an expression I couldn’t read, a cold calculation.

Everybody is scared of the Commissaries, but this was not the time to be sucked into a time-wasting chore. ‘I take my orders from the exec. Sir.’ I looked to the Executive Officer.

Baras’s face was neutral. I knew about the ancient tension between Navy and Commission, but I also knew what Baras would say. ‘Do it, ensign. You’d better go too, Tarco.’